Rebalancing mod

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 2:49 am

I just came across a fairly new mod intended to rebalance Arcanum, from Chris Beddoes. Here are the claims made for it:

) It balances tech-magick-melee in combat .You should now have equally difficult times in advancing your character as a melee fighter mage or tech. This have happened by improving certain tech items as the charged ring , capping speed that you can achieve with spells like haste, putting new items that help tech chars more and see 4) you have to rely on many spells now if you are a mage not just in say harm , or fireball. This adds variety to the game.

2)It eliminates what are really exploits in the game mechanics' . For example you cannot now play a mage get fire flash and then go to the wilderness start killing things and become level 40 in just one hour. And agility of fire now increases speed instead of dexterity . No more i cast it then put points in melee that stay when spell is not cast.

3) Random encounters are now much more difficult and more here and even more here are scaled by your level happen less frequently near the start area and stop happening from level 35 until 48.

4) Monsters now have elemental immunities . A lot are immune to fire and many are immune to harm .

5)The X-Files quest(2 skulls) now comes to a much more satisfactory conclusion.

6)A new limited form of Teleportation now available to every character in game. It requires items and is limited in destination and departure. You can teleport to Tarant, Caladon, Qintara only from almost all the gods shrines and a few other locations.

7) A few areas like the starting area, Shrouded hills and 2 more have been changed completely.

8) More than 12 new areas compared to normal Arcanum. Most of those areas are extremely challenging.

9) New class of items. Charms of the gods here and more here that work like the charms in Diablo LOD . They give you benefits when they are equipped.

10) New class of items. Divine weapons that have a chance to cast new cool spells if you have the requirements.

11)A few quests have been added.

12) You can now change all your followers professions . Than means that you force them to spend their characters points the way you want not their way .For example you can force Virgil to level like Raven or Virgil to level like Sogg.

The mod is available here. I haven't tried it, but Beddoes is fairly well thought of in the Arcanum community.

majoola · Post by **majoola** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 9:02 am

The mod looks pretty good; lots of features--especially the tech/magick balance and training followers how you want them. Different areas like Shrouded Hills should give another reason to go through the game (again!). Have yet to try it, though (I will once I reinstall).

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 4:35 pm

I admit, I'm seriously considering it. Other than the terrible interface--which I could still live with--the real problem for me with Arcanum was the inability to control the actions of your party members in battle. That made a mockery of the whole idea of a group leader, IMO.

But I might give it a whirl...

majoola · Post by **majoola** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 8:44 pm

Yes, overall a higher control level of your followers would increase playability drastically. Another annoying aspect of the game was healers like Virgil (who, after casting a light healing spell on tech-oriented Magnus for the twentieth time, falls unconscious to be beaten to a bloody pulp by otherwise harmless monsters). An AI adjustment mod is in order

I thought the number of orders you could give your NPCs were pretty limiting, too.